At age 77, Edward Wager was long retired but still liked to generate a little extra income by rummaging for cans and bottles.

It was during that pursuit in a Pacific Beach alley that Wager became the target of a carjacker who ran him over with his own pickup and left him dead.

That was in 2001. Fifteen years later, San Diego police homicide investigators and Wager’s daughter are still hoping for the tip that will lead to the killer’s arrest.

They came together Tuesday in front of San Diego police headquarters to ask for help from anyone with information about the case.

“My father didn’t just die. He was brutally murdered,” said Wager’s daughter, Angel Castro, 56, of Clairemont. “That person’s still out there.

“We’re hoping somebody will come forward. Fifteen years ago, maybe they were young and didn’t want to say anything. Now, they’re older.”

She said Wager had worked hard since his mother’s death during his childhood in Connecticut. As an adult in San Diego, he worked in maintenance for Evans Hotels for several decades before retiring.

He and his wife raised their three children in Clairemont. He served in the Army during the Korean War.

After retiring, he stuck to his early morning schedule of collecting recyclables from bar trash bins and alleys along “his route,” which included the Silver Fox bar in Pacific Beach, Castro said. He would return by 5 a.m., and she would swing by his house with coffee, then phone her brother to say their father was OK.

On Nov. 8, 2001, he wasn’t home at 5 a.m. Castro called her brother and her husband, then heard news on her car radio about a fatal hit-and-run in Pacific Beach. Her husband called police, who confirmed the family’s worst fears.

Homicide Lt. Mike Holden said Wager’s body had been found about 2 a.m. in an alley off Grand Avenue. Police first thought he was a pedestrian hit-and-run victim, with injuries showing he had been dragged.

Police found Wager’s pickup in Encanto three days later. Investigators believe he was carjacked and run over by the thief in Wager’s truck.

Family members were devastated over Wager’s death. Castro, who works for the San Diego city Parks and Recreation Department, said it was 10 years before she could force herself to drive through Pacific Beach.

If there was an arrest, she said, “I could sleep better at night. I would know there is justice out there.”

Holden said any piece of information about what happened in that alley “might be what we need to solve this case.”